<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>After You by anneapocalypse</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23190682">After You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse'>anneapocalypse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Break Up, It's Just Sadness Folks, Other, POV Second Person, Post-Episode: s01e18 Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place, brief mentions of blood and injury</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:08:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,234</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23190682</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what you do with that broken heart of yours, Peter Nureyev.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>After You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I just like suffering I guess.</p><p><b>A brief warning</b>: This fic contains a scene in which a character second-guesses himself after the fact about, among other things, a sexual encounter. I want to be very clear that this is not meant to suggest that the encounter itself was not fully consensual. This is meant to be a painful moment of self-doubt, and not a commentary on what actually happened. Hopefully, this is clear in the story itself, but I thought it might merit a heads-up.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You wake in the early morning to a strange light in the room.</p><p>It's the rain, you think, still sleepy. It's still coming down outside, though softer now. With your glasses off, the window of your fifth-floor suite at the Bellerose in uptown Hyperion is a fuzzy silver blur.</p><p>Close your eyes, roll over—and then remember.</p><p>Slide your hand over the sheets, to the space beside you, and find it cold.</p><p> </p><p>You sit up now, reaching for your glasses on the bedside table, but you know before you look: the covers pushed aside, the opposite bedside table empty. His wallet, keys, comms, and blaster gone. His clothes gone from the floor where you left them last night.</p><p>You know.</p><p>Deep down, did you know all along?</p><p> </p><p>You remember the footsteps, now. At first you thought it was the rain, until you heard the jingle of a belt buckle.</p><p>He doesn't sleep well. He's mentioned that, and you certainly witnessed it during the days you spent together in the tomb, though it's doubtful anyone would have slept well under such conditions. Still, it was easy enough to tell yourself he was simply getting up for a drink of water. A snack from the vending machine at the end of the hallway. A breath of fresh air.</p><p>Easy enough to keep your eyes closed, and pretend to be asleep.</p><p> </p><p>You get up now, Nureyev, even though it's only half past five and you were up late. You check the bathroom, as though you might find him in the shower. As though Juno Steel is the sort of person to be up and shaving at five-thirty in the morning.</p><p>Pace from one end of your suite to the other. Stare into the glass-doored cabinets of the kitchenette you had no use for, but got anyway, because a lady deserves nice accommodations even if you aren't going to be using anything but the bed.</p><p>Look at the bed next. Remember how he felt in your arms, against your lips and under your hands.</p><p> </p><p>The guilt hits you first, like a runaway train.</p><p>He didn't want this. You pressured him into it. He snuck out in the night because he didn't know how to tell you no.</p><p>You drop into the desk chair and drop your face into your hands. Drag your hands through your hair. Notice your hands still smell like him.</p><p>Feel sick for a moment.</p><p>Then go over every word of the previous evening in your mind. Comb through your memory like you're going over the details of your next job.</p><p>
  <em>I want to leave. With you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That sounds exciting, too.</em>
</p><p>Remember eager kisses, hands pulling you close. Remember you asked him if he was sure. You asked if he wanted…</p><p>And he said yes.</p><p>He vocalized a variety of affirmations last night, in fact. Increasingly creative ones.</p><p>Exhale, Peter Nureyev.</p><p>You know all this.</p><p>But the unease in your stomach lingers.</p><p> </p><p>Get up. Pace the suite from one end to the other. Think about getting coffee. From the hotel restaurant, of course, not the stale swill they put in the rooms.</p><p>First, a shower. You're a mess.</p><p>Tell yourself that by the time you're out, maybe he'll have come back. <em>Oh, hello Juno,</em> you'll say, toweling off your hair, <em>I was beginning to think you'd gotten cold feet.</em> And he'll laugh and say, <em>Sorry, should have left a note.</em></p><p>Almost believe it.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, Juno is not there when you emerge from the bathroom.</p><p>Dress, then. Shave. Fix your hair, put on your face. Go down to the restaurant ("Le Jardin") and get that coffee. Return to your suite.</p><p>Wait there for three more hours, just in case he comes back.</p><p> </p><p>You do not, of course, sit idle for those hours. Perish the thought. You check your comms, scroll through the new feeds, look at transit schedules out of Hyperion City, and off Mars.</p><p>You hadn't settled on a destination, the two of you. You suppose you had planned to simply walk into the spaceport and buy two tickets to the farthest-away world you saw on the departures. Or the most exciting-sounding. Somewhere neither of you had ever been, where only new experiences and opportunities would abound.</p><p> </p><p>Your feeds dry up, and the anger hits you next. He could have <em>told</em> you he had changed his mind. He could have left a <em>note</em> at the very least. And isn't this just like Juno Steel, this hot-and-cold, take-it-and-then-throw-it-back-in-your-face—</p><p>And like that, just like that you hear that little hesitation in his voice again.</p><p>
  <em>Yeah… yeah. I said so, didn't I?</em>
</p><p>He said all of it because he was about to <em>die</em>, Nureyev. And then when he lived…</p><p>He just didn't know how to go back on it.</p><p>Oh, Peter. You idiot.</p><p>There's the guilt again. Only it doesn't quite chase away the anger. Who are you even angry at, Peter Nureyev? Juno? Or yourself?</p><p> </p><p>Collect your things and check out.</p><p>There's a pang when you leave the suite, closing the door to the room where you lay next to him, where you can still smell him in the sheets. But you don't really feel it until you cross the lobby of the Bellerose and step out the door, onto the wet sidewalk.</p><p>The rain is still coming down. You do not have an umbrella. Everything you currently own is on your person, and the clothes are new. The filthy, burned and bloodstained suit you lived in for days down in the Martian tomb is on its way to a waste incinerator somewhere. A pity. It was rather a nice suit.</p><p>You are untethered once again, nameless thief. You are as you should be. As it has been your nature to be, since you vanished out out from under your own name. Since you left Mag Ransom with a wound the shape of your knife, and fled New Kinshasa with a wound the shape of Mag Ransom.</p><p>For the first time in more than a decade, you think of what awaits you out in the stars beyond Mars, beyond the shimmering dome of this latest city, and you do not feel free. The feeling in your chest is hollow.</p><p>You are also getting quite wet, standing here.</p><p>Shake your head, Peter Nureyev, and get moving.</p><p> </p><p>The rain shows no signs of abating, and you pick up your pace. The quality of your shoes leaves something to be desired. You could've gotten something better in Olympus Mons, but Juno insisted on coming back to Hyperion City, so you made do with the options in Uptown.</p><p>So Juno Steel is also to blame for your wet feet.</p><p>You're soaked by the time you reach a bus stop. The crowd rushes past you in wet waves, shiny coats and dripping umbrellas. Hundreds of small-time marks pass you by in a minute, and though not one of them would come close to settling your outstanding accounts, in the back of your mind you assess each one automatically.</p><p>You tuck yourself under the overhang of the crowded bus shelter. Feel the safe, familiar anonymity of being just one of many dripping, preoccupied figures in a crowd. As you are, and as you are meant to be. Take comfort it in.</p><p>Then take out your comms and call the office of Juno Steel.</p><p> </p><p>A familiar voice answers your call.</p><p>"Good <em>morning!</em> You've reached the office of Juno Steel, Private Investigator! And aren't you in <em>luck</em>, because we are back open for <em>business! </em>This is <em>Rita!</em> What can we do for ya?"</p><p>Hang up.</p><p> </p><p>There's a peculiar sort of relief in it, isn't there? Not an easy relief, of course. One that stings, but nevertheless. You can retire any fears that he's been snatched off the street, or wandered into some new kind of trouble. No, he'll be right back to his usual kind of trouble.</p><p>And you, nameless thief, had better be getting back to yours.</p><p>Catch the bus to Hyperion Central Station and stand, holding onto the hand rail, trying not to drip on anyone. A futile endeavor, you suppose, as everyone around you is quite as wet as you are. But courtesy is next to invisibility in close public spaces. People remember someone who irritated them on the bus. They will not remember you.</p><p>Hold the rail, swaying slightly with the motion of the bus. Your nails are a mess, you note. You could get them done before you leave Mars. Certainly before you meet any potential clients. It doesn't give a good impression, you think, if a thief can't take care of his own hands.</p><p>Hold the rail, and think: at least he's alive.</p><p>Juno Steel is alive and well in this city, doing what Juno Steel will do.</p><p>He just doesn't want you.</p><p> </p><p>You are nominally drier by the time you reach Hyperion Central. Take your time here; there is no hurry. Check the outgoing trains, check again the offworld flights. Remember you haven't had any breakfast. Pick one of the little cafés on the concourse. Get a croissant.</p><p>Tear it apart with your fingers as you dissect your present circumstances, trying to unravel the events of the past few months. Permit yourself to sit a moment and try to assemble all the pieces into a clear picture of your missteps.</p><p>A kiss in a small apartment and the taste of whiskey in his mouth. A note and a name written behind your back, a handy trick you learned many years ago. Angry eyes and harsh words exchanged in a casino hotel. A laser pistol in Juno's hand, the barrel pressed against his own temple.</p><p>Moments when, weary with pain and exhaustion, you leaned on each other against the grimy wall of an ancient Martian chamber.</p><p>Remember holding him as he drifted in and out of consciousness, mumbling things from your own memories decades past, blood running down his face, staining your shirt.</p><p>Remember, Peter Nureyev, that leaving you is not the worst thing Juno Steel could do to you. Remember calling his name through a sealed airlock. Remember pounding on the door, remember he called you a <em>gift,</em> and remember the explosion and then the shape of the silence in which you believed he was dead.</p><p>Remember how that shattered you like nothing ever will again.</p><p>And remember the moment you felt his pulse, and saw him breathe.</p><p>Life offers few such reprieves. Be grateful for the one you were given.</p><p> </p><p>Now then. You've indulged yourself quite long enough. Finish your coffee, and find your next destination.</p><p>You check your accounts. Enough to get you off Mars, certainly, but you must choose your destination carefully. You need a new job, and quickly. Even with the favors you were able to call in, the cost of… pacifying the Kanagawas set you back a substantial amount. You had, at the time, been counting on the final payment from the Miasma job to even things out. Without a swift payout, you will soon fall behind on the one account on which you cannot afford to default.</p><p>But file all of that away. Set your focus on the next step forward: leaving Mars.</p><p>Do not think of Juno beside you, holding your hand as you choose some thrilling new world to explore together. Do not think of him sitting beside you in the terminal, that dreamy look you witnessed on his face last night, the one you are starting to wonder if you imagined. That rare, soft smile.</p><p>Get up, Peter Nureyev. It was a fantasy, and one that was never to be, and now you understand that, so stow your foolish longings like so much luggage and get moving.</p><p>One day, perhaps, you will be permitted to be at rest. One day, perhaps, you will find the means to unburden yourself. Today is not that day.</p><p>It is time to put Mars behind you, and Juno too.</p><p> </p><p>The rain has tapered off by the time you purchase your ticket and find your platform. You have about a thirty-minute wait, and then a train will carry you from Hyperion Central to the spaceport outside the city limits, beyond the shields, where you will board your transit ship.</p><p>Perhaps your shoes will be dry by then. One can only hope.</p><p>You have time to touch up your face in a station restroom, at least. Do that now.</p><p> </p><p>As your train pulls out of the station, you take in the skyline through the rain-spotted window, just for a moment—the tall buildings and the floating mansions, the Kanagawas' false moon silver-white against the morning sky.</p><p>The train rumbles, picking up speed, and the city falls away. Take your last look, then turn your eyes forward, Peter Nureyev, and do not look back.</p><p> </p><p>You have made a life out of opening locked doors, reaching into forbidden places, and taking things that do not belong to you. So the temptation will be strong here, nameless thief, to keep reaching. Not only to watch over him, but to search his life, his history, for <em>why.</em></p><p>Do not do it.</p><p>Do not wonder where he is. Do not think about what he's doing now, or what he will be doing after you're gone. You made him a promise, and now you will keep it.</p><p>You will live without knowing the shape his life takes, after you.</p><p>END</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p><p>Should you be interested in hearing me yell about this podcast some more, you may find me on <a href="http://anneapocalyse.dreamwidth.org">dreamwidth</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/apocalypse_anne">twitter</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>